So we got tickets to the boxing match, which turned out to be yet another otherworldly developing-world sporting experience, which is pretty much no surprise since the match, like the soccer game, turned out to be a much grander deal than we'd anticipated. It was the first fight in four years for Ike 'Bazooka' Quartey, a Ghanaian boxer who once held the world welterweight title, sounds like for quite awhile. Before retirement, his record was 32-4-1, with 29 knockouts; his famous right jab knocks the crap out of people, apparently. Two of his losses - one of them to Oscar de la Hoya - came right at the end of his career, and pissed him off enough to cause him to bail on the sport. But now he's run out of money and wants his title back. Thus this fight, and thus the excitement.
We got ringside seats but they were unassigned, so to make sure we could all sit together we left the house around 8:30 - the main fight wouldn't happen until midnight but there were about 6 fights scheduled to preceed it. I don't know what we were expecting the venue to look like - small, indoors, dark, pressed with people. But what we got was really bizarre and strangely exciting: the ring was set up outside in an empty, wide-open field, and circled all around by plastic chairs arranged in neat concentric rows (if a row can be concentric). The lighting: 8 bare but powerful lightbulbs strung above the ring, which blinked out every time someone stepped on the extension cord. There were several levels to the tickets people were holding, and there was a mad crush of people trying to sit ringside; I spent at least 4 weird minutes with my face pressed into the back of this gigantic Ghanaian guy in a Ricky Williams jersey and braids down to his butt who was fighting with the security guards about his preferred seating option, which was to pay to sit way back but move up front. And all of this unfolded in near darkness, since the only lighting was coming from the bulbs.
The fights themselves were pretty sick. I love all sorts of sports, but not boxing; watching two people punch each other repeatedly for a half hour or so is not my idea of fun, and Laura and I spent most of the night in a state of horrified curiosity. The interesting thing was that we could tell within the first 30 seconds of a fight who was going to win - probably a useless sixth sense to have, but we were never wrong. The crowd was tame during the early fights, but as the matchups grew bigger in importance the anticipation started growing. The Ghanaian drums started. People strained in their seats, yelling for one guy or another to knock the other's lights out. It was hard to see the crowd because of the lighting, but we could feel it. By the time the main fight came around, at about 1am, they were rabid. When Ike came out, dressed in shorts sequined in the colors of the Ghanaian flag, they pretty much went nuts. "Bazooooooka!" they yelled.
The Ghanaian's return was no disappointment, and we're both convinced he'd been set up for a win. His opponent was Clint MacNeil, a compact little American guy with blond hair and balloony blue and white shorts and a cross tatooed on the middle of his back. When the match started, we could tell immediately that Clint was toast. Bazooka's jab has lost none of its oomph, and he'd been blessed with long arms; the little American could not hit back without stepping forward, something he was clearly loathe to do. As a result, the match was a bit monotonous: Bazooka jabbing, American's head snapping back ... Bazooka jabbing, American's head snapping back.... Laura covered her eyes, and handled the taunts coming our way from the Ghanaians around us who thought we were there to cheer the American. (I think some of her sentences could be considered technical knockouts.) I just screamed "Dude, hit him back!" something like 100 times. Around us, everyone was up and shouting, more and more as the match progressed and especially when they sensed blood. The American had never in his career been knocked out, but it was looking like he was about to get his first experience in hitting the floor headfirst. Sure enough, down he went, in the fifth round. How he lasted that long I have no idea. He looked a bit delirious, and his face was covered in blood.
We hightailed it out of there before they officially announced Bazooka the winner; judging from the way people were rushing the ring, Kofi and Vivian thought there might be a riot. So we made our way out through another crush of people. I am happy to say that he two guys tag-teaming to get in my bag were nicely deterred by a little strategic slapping and hip-checking on my part. We made it back to the car and to Kofi and Vivian's house safely but tired at about 2:30 in the morning.
And then it was up at 5:30 to throw on some black clothes and get in the truck and drive to Kofi's half-brother's mother's funeral. Or what we thought was the funeral. Kofi and Vivian had thought it would be interesting for us, and so did we, and indeed it was. But what we didn't know was that to get there we were going to have to drive for about four hours, mostly on unpaved roads with giant dips and holes and choked with traffic, and that it would take us even longer to get back, thanks to some innovative cheating maneuvers that a lot of drivers were pulling that were making traffic even worse. In Ghana, there is no such thing as a traffic law and the police are less about the enforcement of anything than they are about taking bribes. That plus the fact that a margarine truck was stuck in the middle of the road had us, at one point, sitting for two hours in the same spot, baking in our black clothes. Kofi and Vivian passed the time by expressing their exasperation with Ghana and its road system pretty much nonstop, flowing between English and Tre. Laura got out of the car and took a roadside walk to see if she could get some life back in her butt. I put a few drops of water on my finger and drew tribal marks on my face, which I could do because my face was covered in road dust.
Roadtrip nightmare aside - we were either stopped or bumping up and down on bad roads for more than 8 hours - the funeral was a culturally intriguing little affair. It was actually more a pre-funeral than a funeral itself. Basically, people from the village and beyond gathered to pay their respects from the family and learn the date of the actual funeral. In this case the funeral isn't until March, so that family from overseas can make it to Ghana for the burial. And so we sat in a little outdoor courtyard filled to the brim with would-be mourners, most of them draped in layers of black cloth, and listened to the tribal chief announce the funeral date. And then ... we sort of just sat there. And then ... sat there. Which is more or less what people had been and would be doing for hours. The only real excitement came when Laura and I found out that the reason we were drawing more than the usual level of attention (so, considerable +) was that Kofi's half brother has children who are half white. All of the handshaking and exclaiming going on around us was happening because they thought we were the grandchildren of the deceased. The other bit of excitement came when I asked where the body was, and Kofi told me "in the refrigerator," by which I thought he meant the refrigerator that the Coke in my hand had come from, right outside the courtyard. Turns out he meant the morgue, which clearly makes more sense. But this is Ghana, and at this point I think I would believe anything, including stuffing grandma in a fridge with the beverages.
My flight leaves Ghana in about 8 hours, and after that I'll be traveling for about 30. Laura's heading back to rasta paradise for a few days of beach-side relaxation, and flies out next week. It's been an incredible trip, a challenging trip. More to follow!
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